As Bangladesh reinvents itself, Islamist hard-liners see an opening

Taraganj, Bangladesh: The extremists began by asserting control over women's bodies.

In the political vacuum that has emerged after the overthrow of Bangladesh's authoritarian leader, religious fundamentalists in one town declared that young women could no longer play soccer. In another, they forced police to free a man who had harassed a woman for not covering her hair in public, then draped him in garlands of flowers.

More brazen calls followed. Demonstrators at a rally in Dhaka, the capital, warned that if the government did not give the death penalty to anyone who disrespected Islam, they would carry out executions with their own hands. Days later, an outlawed group held a large march demanding an Islamic caliphate.

As Bangladesh tries to rebuild its democracy and chart a new future for its 175 million people, a streak of Islamic extremism that had long lurked beneath the country's secular facade is bubbling to the surface.

In interviews, representatives of several Islamic parties and organizations -- some of which had previously been banned -- made clear that they were working to push Bangladesh in a more fundamentalist direction, a shift that has been little noticed outside the country.

The Islamic leaders are insisting that Bangladesh erect an "Islamic government" that punishes those who disrespect Islam and enforces "modesty" -- vague concepts that in other places have given way to vigilantism or theocratic rule.

Officials across the political spectrum who are drafting a new constitution acknowledged that the document was likely to drop secularism as a defining characteristic of Bangladesh, replacing it with pluralism and redrawing the country along more religious lines.

The fundamentalist turn has been especially distressing for female students who helped oust the country's repressive prime minister, Sheikh Hasina.

They had hoped to replace her one-party rule with a democratic openness that accommodates the country's diversity. But now they find themselves competing against a religious populism that leaves women and religious minorities, including Hindus and adherents of small sects of Islam, particularly vulnerable.

"We were at the forefront of the protests. We protected our brothers on the street," said Sheikh Tasnim Afroz Emi, 29, a sociology graduate from Dhaka University. "Now after five, six months, the whole thing turned around."

Critics say the country's interim government, led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, 84, has not pushed back hard enough against extremist forces. They accuse Yunus of being soft, lost in the weeds of democratic reforms, conflict-averse and unable to articulate a clear vision as extremists take up more public space.

His lieutenants describe a delicate balancing act: They must protect the right to free speech and protest after years of authoritarianism, but doing so provides an opening for extremist demands.

The police, who largely deserted after Hasina's fall and remain demoralized, can no longer hold the line. The military, which has taken up some policing duties, is increasingly at odds with the interim government and the student movement, which wants to hold officers accountable for past atrocities.

What is happening in Bangladesh mirrors a wave of fundamentalism that has consumed the region.

Afghanistan has become an extreme ethno-religious state, depriving women of the most basic liberties. In Pakistan, Islamic extremists have exerted their will through violence for years. In India, an entrenched Hindu right wing has undermined the country's traditions of secular democracy. Myanmar is gripped by Buddhist extremists overseeing a campaign of ethnic cleansing.

Nahid Islam, a student leader who was a government minister in Bangladesh's interim administration before stepping away recently to lead a new political party, acknowledged "the fear is there" that the country will slip toward extremism.

But he is hopeful that despite changes in the constitution, values like democracy, cultural diversity and an aversion to religious extremism can hold. "I don't think a state can be built in Bangladesh that goes against those fundamental values," he said.

Some point to a Bengali culture with a deep tradition of art and intellectual debate. Others find hope in the shape of the country's economy.

Women are so integrated in Bangladesh's economy -- 37% are in the formal labor force, one of the highest rates in South Asia -- that any efforts to force them back into the home could result in a backlash.

Extremist forces are trying to push their way into the picture after 15 years in which Hasina both suppressed and appeased them.

She ran a police state that cracked down on Islamist elements, including those closer to the mainstream that could pose a political challenge. At the same time, she tried to win over Islamic parties' religiously conservative base by allowing thousands of unregulated Islamic religious seminaries and putting $1 billion toward building hundreds of mosques.

With Hasina gone, smaller extremist outfits that want to upend the system entirely, and more mainstream Islamic parties that want to work within the democratic system, appear to be converging on a shared goal of a more fundamentalist Bangladesh.

The largest Islamic party, Jamaat-e-Islami, sees a big opportunity. The party, which has significant business investments, is playing a long-term game, analysts and diplomats said. While it is unlikely to win an election expected at the end of the year, the party hopes to capitalize on the discrediting of mainstream secular parties.

Mia Golam Parwar, Jamaat's general secretary, said the party wanted an Islamic welfare state. The closest model, in its mix of religion and politics, is Turkey, he said.

"Islam provides moral guidelines for both men and women in terms of behavior and ethics," Parwar said. "Within these guidelines, women can take part in any profession -- sports, singing, theater, judiciary, military and bureaucracy."

In the current vacuum, however, men at the local level have been coming up with their own interpretations of Islamic governance.

In the farming town of Taraganj, a group of organizers decided in February to hold a soccer match between two teams of young women. The goal was to provide entertainment and inspire local girls.

But as preparations got underway, a town mosque leader, Ashraf Ali, proclaimed that women and girls should not be allowed to play soccer.

Sports organizers usually announce details of a game by sending loudspeakers tied to rickshaws around town. Ali matched them by sending his own speakers, warning people not to attend.

On Feb. 6, as the players were changing into their jerseys in classrooms turned into dressing rooms, local officials were holding a meeting about the game. Ali declared that he "would rather become a martyr than allow the match," said Sirajul Islam, one of the organizers.

The local administration caved in, announcing the game's cancellation and putting the area under curfew.

Taslima Aktar, 22, who had traveled four hours by bus to play in the match, said she had seen "a lot of cars, army and police," who told the players that the match was off.

Aktar said that in her decade playing soccer, this was the first time she had faced such opposition.

"I am a bit afraid now of what could happen," she said.

The organizers managed to carry out a women's match a couple of weeks later, in the presence of dozens of security forces. But as a precaution, they asked the young women to wear stockings under their shorts.

With the preacher's unrelenting threats, the organizers said they were not sure they would take the risk again.

During an interview, Ali, the mosque leader, beamed with pride: He had turned something mundane into something disputed. In a rural area like Taraganj, he said, women's soccer contributes to "indecency."

Women's sports was just his latest cause. For years, he has preached and petitioned against the Ahmadiyya, a long-persecuted minority Muslim community, trying to drive its 500 members out of his area.

The Ahmadiyya's place of worship was attacked by a mob on the night that Hasina's government collapsed, part of a national wave of anarchy that targeted minority religious sites, particularly those of Hindus. The Ahmadiyya community continues to live in fear; attendance at their prayer hall has shrunk by nearly half.

They are not allowed to rebuild the hall's destroyed sign or to broadcast their call to prayer from loudspeakers. Ali shrugged off any responsibility for the violence. But the sermons of preachers like him, declaring the Ahmadiyya heretics who need to be expelled, continue to blare.

"The public is respectful," said A.K.M. Shafiqul Islam, the president of the local Ahmadiyya chapter. "But these religious leaders are against us."